Disclaimer: Ack. Must I bastardize Shakespeare! Fortunately, this fanfiction is in English, so I have the weight of Western civilization as an excuse. As usual, no commercial profit is gained from this fanwork, and no one knows the fandom anyway. This is for me and my writing block.

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Koumi tries to remember.

In the dusky twilight, they run through the ruins, hand tight-clasped in hand. Stones race on underneath, the rubble of forgotten centuries.

Squeezed shut, moisture seeps through her eyelids, wetting her lashes, but the tear goes no further.

The memory she grasps for does not appear; the dream does not materialize. She only gets the image of herself running alone, and when she tries to cast her mind into the later moments she only gets fragments of a possible past: standing atop the breakwater, stretching out her hand to Abo, who disdains it and jumps. She jumps every single time. Their fate is such.

Even so, Koumi stays. Beyond all reason, beyond need, she stays, and she does not know why.

Her hands creep to tighten across Abo's slim waist as she lies on the bed. The other girl hardly stirs, hardly breathes, although her eyes are probably open; Koumi cannot be sure, for Abo is turned away from her. Sighing deeply, she rests her weary head against the warm back and grasps at unreachable visions.

Minutes pass. Then Abo's hand inches to Koumi's and covers it.

That is all there is.

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Abo covers her hand and guides it downwards. Koumi's body is pliant behind her, a little bird seeking comfort from the storm.

Perhaps, she thinks, they are fated to live again and again, die again and again, betraying each other, being betrayed. Killing, being killed.

The cloth of her black blouse crinkles as they skim over it and stop. Fingers close over fingers, arm pressed against arm.

Abo remembers a reality Koumi does not. Abo knows they will part one day.

Elastic yields.

The man's words merely confirmed what she had foretold, that a future in which they remained together would be an empty and bleak place devoid of life.

The heartbeat of the bird behind her flutters. She can hear every thud as if it is her own. Blood beating through brain, a relentless rhythm drumming in her ears, Abo lets her lips slip open, expels a soundless breath. There is no delight in this, no joy.

There are no colours in their wilderness, no brights save the glaring white of Koumi's shirt. This is where the real Abo lives.

She closes her eyes and sees an expanse of blue, deep blue. Her toes twitch and flex restlessly as the colour floods over her, into her, while she floats unresisting.

To breathe only water, then to sleep in the calm eternity of time would be a rest indeed. Abo has always felt the tug of this undertow, this insidious current that reminds her of the truth, the truth, the truth of her life and death that comes from her past, her past that she cannot escape.

The sea caresses her, again and again, but she does nothing, knows nothing except the sensation of diving and the pressure building in her ears. She has to surface soon.

To be cradled in the arms of this ocean is a gift, is it not, and the oblivion that lies at the end a greater.

"Umi," she murmurs, and the blue spreads its fingers over her and carries her like a babe to her end.

That is all there is.

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Postscript: Apologies to passing readers and to those on my notify list! I'm trying to get back into writing Noir again, but several other shows have been severely bothering me. This is me flushing the toilet, to use an extremely crude metaphor that is, nevertheless, sadly appropriate.